Hi Amy! So happy we got the chance to borrow you in the midst of your upcoming installation. Can you tell us about the background to Dotdotdot?
Dotdotdot was born in 2019 and founded by Petter Rhodiner, Lisa Juntunen Roos and myself. We met and became friends during our time at Konstfack where we’ve all studied the master’s programme in ceramics.
We all came out of the craft scene where we saw that there was a big disconnect from what the public perceived as craft and what the younger generation was doing. We really wanted to champion material based artists and people that are working within the craft field which is what we decided to do.
The founders of Dotdotdot: Amy Worrall, Petter Rhodiner and Lisa Juntunen Roos.
What criterias do you have when deciding which artists to represent?
The main criteria is that the artist needs to have a really strong material connection. The other is that they haven’t had a platform to show their work on, a platform which we think they deserve and want to provide.
The longer we go on we’ve naturally evolved so now we’re thinking more about bringing fine art painters onto the platform as well. Our main goal is to elevate the field of craft and provide something new and that’s always present in the selection of artists.
Photo from the Sexy Food 2019 exhibition.
Do you choose the themes for your exhibitions?
Yes, we choose the themes. We don’t really have an overarching theme, it's more about following the ideas that come to us. We send out a brief to the artists with an exhibition that has an already decided structure to it. Sometimes it’s a broad theme and other times it's super specific. It’s really fun to follow their processes! To know the first words they received about the project and then following them from idea to end product.
We want to keep it inspiring and fun and we believe that what’s fun for us and for the artist is what’s fun for the public too.
Petter Rhodiner at the Hang In There 2021 exhibition.
What’s the benefit of being several founders?
One of the benefits is that we have defined different roles and divided the tasks. I do a lot of the writing and social media stuff, Petter is really good with building and planning the exhibitions and Lisa does admin and handles the relations to the artists.
Another benefit is that there are several opinions that can identify pitfalls and we can bounce ideas off of each other which is crucial. Working as an artist can in general be quite lonesome so that’s another reason.
Amy Worrall and Petter Rhodiner working on the installation Pool side Cool side.
What do you have planned ahead?
We’re making a contemporary public art installation in the Stockholm city center by the Sergel square. It’s a space where lots of people pass through and they’re all gonna be able to watch us make it.
We’re trying to find lots of different ways to push how people see craft, and this project is a great opportunity to do so. We’ve had workshops with kids to make additives to the installation as well. There’s going to be five sculptures in Papier Mache that are two to three meter big. The tiles of the square look like the bottom of a swimming pool so that’s what we want to build on.
Work in progress for Pool side Cool side at Sergels torg.
At the end of September we’re featuring nine artists in an exhibition called Backstabbers. It’s all about people hating things basically. We sent all of the artists a knife blade and asked them to come up with an angle on it. We invited the artist Emma Friberg to make some big ceramic sculptures that these knives can be stabbed into.
There’s just been so many frustrations for us in our own practices and it really made sense to make this thing about how everything is shit and then make something fun out of it.
Make sure to stop by Sergels torg to see the installation! You can find them on Artworks here.
